Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor | Continuous Flow Reactor for Advanced Chemical Materials

Advantages of Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor

1. Continuous Flow & High Yield Production

The Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor is equipped with feeding ports for continuous input of reactants and an outlet for reaction products. The continuous flow reaction set-up allows for improved heat transfer, mixing force, reproducibility, and scale-up of chemical reactions.

Moreover, our reactors create homogenous micro-mixing zones such that there are no dead zones. This ensures that all reactant materials are processed uniformly for a yield of ≥ 95% with close to zero loss of materials.

A study conducted at Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) compared a Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor, vibration mill, and homogenizer for a zirconia bead emulsion polymerization. The results demonstrated that the Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor produced the highest yield, most uniformly sized and spherically shaped, smallest, and densest particles. More data can be found in our Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor brochure.

2. Combined Benefits of Batch Reactor and Plug Flow Reactor

The Taylor Vortex Continuous Flow Reactor provides the advantages of both tank-type reactors and plug flow reactors (PFRs), without the limitations of either type of reactor. Similar to tubular PFRs, the Taylor Flow Reactor produces remarkably high purity and uniform products with high repeatability. Both the homogenous micro-mixing zones and the high shear applied by the Taylor Vortex Flow makes this reactor ideal for manufacturing nano materials, as well. The continuous flow set-up also makes our Taylor Flow Reactor ideal for large-scale production for commercial products, similar to a tank-type reactor. Moreover, engineers and lab technicians can operate our reactors easily with minimal training.

1. High purity particle production
2. High repeatability
3. Suitable for nano materials manufacturing

Tank Reactor

1. Easy to operate, monitor, and control
2. Mixer function
3. Suitable for large-scale production

3. High Purity Materials Manufacturing

The Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor consistently produces higher purity particles than any other type of reactor on the market.

Compared to a batch tank reactor, which achieves a 51.5% purity with a single crystallization reaction and requires several batches to achieve a suitable purity, the Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor achieves a 98.2% purity in its first crystallization reaction. As such, our reactor improves production efficiency and reduces manufacturing costs and reactant waste by significant margins.

4. Exothermic Reaction Control Feature

The circulating chiller/heater is a core component of the Taylor Continuous Flow Reactor as it affords strict temperature regulation of reaction processes. As seen below, the internal reactor temperature stays constant throughout the reaction, especially when compared to a batch reactor.

Furthermore, LPR Global’s Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor has an explosion control that automatically adjusts the reactor temperature in the instance of rapid heating, making it a safe reactor.

5. High Uniformity in Product Particle Size and Shape

The homogenous micro-mixing environment of the Taylor Flow Reactor consistently and reliably produces dense, uniformly shaped and sized particle grains.

CSTR vs. LCTR: Microscopic Images of Product Particles

CSTR – Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor

LCTR – Continuous Taylor Flow Reactor

6. Reduced Cycle Time & Enhanced Production Efficiency

The vigorous homogenous micro-mixing zones, generated by the Taylor Vortex Flow, enhance mass transfer velocity by up to 4x and mixing force by up to 7x compared to a similarly sized batch reactor. Moreover, there are no “dead zones” within the reaction solution, which ensures that all reactants are being processed while in the reaction vessel.

As a result, our Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor can increase production capacity by a minimum of 2x to a maximum of 100x compared to similarly sized batch reactor or CSTR. For instance, the output of our 5L Taylor Continuous Flow Reactor is roughly equivalent to a 20L CSTR in a given reaction time.

Patent Protected Chemical Reactor using Taylor Flow

United States

• Purification apparatus and method using continuous reactors (US 9,937,480B2)
• Apparatus and method for manufacturing particles (US 10,005,062B2)
• All-in-one continuous reactor and crystal separation apparatus for synthesis of positive electrode active materials for lithium secondary battery (US 10,010,851B2)
• Reaction device and reaction method for mixing (US 10,201,797B2)

Europe

• Apparatus for manufacturing particles and method utilizing apparatus for manufacturing particles (EP 3012019B1)
• All in one continuous reactor and crystal separation apparatus for manufacturing positive electrode active material for lithium secondary battery (EP 2735366B1)
• Purification apparatus and method using continuous reactors (EP 2893964B1)

Japan

• All-in-one type continuous reactor and crystal separation apparatus for synthesis of positive electrode active material for lithium secondary battery (JP 5714708)
• Reaction device and respective manufacturing method for mixing (JP 6257636)
• Refining device and method for continuous reactor (JP 6352919)
• Manufacturing device and method for quantum dots (JP 6568265)

South Korea

• Reaction device and manufacturing method for mixing (10-1092337)
• Polarizing film to waste recovery of potassium iodide (10-2241620)
• Special cylinder for reactor (10-1239163)
• Gas-liquid reactor and reaction method for lithium secondary cathode materials (10-1361118)
• High-pressure reaction apparatus (10-1364691)
• Tryptophan purification devices and methods (10-1372811)
• Solid-liquid mixed reaction apparatus (10-1399057)
• An apparatus and method for synthesis of particles (10-1464345)
• An apparatus and method for synthesis of core-shell particles (10-1424610)
• Ultra-high purity purification device including a continuous reactor (10-1427324)
• Surface treatment method using Taylor-Couette Flow Reactor (10-1727939)
• Methods and devices for manufacturing non-oxidizing graphene using electrochemical pretreatment and shear flow exfoliation (10-1785374)
• Graphene metal nanoparticle complex (10-1866190)
• Manufacturing system and method using Couette-Taylor reactor for graphene oxide synthesis (10-1573384)
• Eco-friendly graphene oxide synthesis system using Taylor-Couette reactor (10-1573358)

Certificates

Business Case: Taylor-Couette Reactor for Production of Graphene Oxide and Graphene Materials

A large-scale 2D graphene producer based in the Midwest US chose our 10L Taylor Vortex Reactor to maintain their market advantage and innovative leadership in global graphene production. The client produces single- and few-layer graphene and graphene oxide for applications in electric vehicle (EV) lithium-ion battery, nano-intermediates-thermoplastics, conductive films, energy storage, and more.

Already holding hundreds of patents in graphene production technology, the client invested in our continuous flow reactor to further enhance the quality and capacity of their graphene R&D laboratories.

Graphene: Applications and Conventional Manufacturing Processes

Graphene is a 2D carbon material with a hexagonal molecular structure. It is one of the strongest and thinnest materials in the world, and it won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for its extraordinary properties. Graphene’s excellent electric and thermal conductivity makes it the basis of many next-generation solutions for energy storage, electric vehicles (EVs), solar cells, and more.

While well-known methods of graphene production exist, including Hummer’s method, sonication exfoliation, and homogenization exfoliation, graphene has traditionally been expensive and difficult to produce. Each of the above methods have significant limitations, such as environmental concerns, low yields, complex multi-step processes, and the production of small, uneven flakes. These limitations prevent industrial-scale production of graphene, which should be high quality, low cost, high yield, and environmentally friendly.

Taylor Vortex Reactor: New Method for Graphene Oxide Synthesis

Recently, the literature on graphene oxide synthesis via the Taylor Vortex Reactor has been growing. Also referred to as Taylor-Couette Flow Reactor, Couette-Taylor Flow Reactor, Stress Shearing Reactor, the reactor’s production of purer, more uniform, more efficient, and higher yields of graphene oxide and graphene flakes has been replicated in several studies across the world.

Below, we summarize findings from several peer-reviewed studies that highlight the advantages of using a Continuous Vortex Flow Reactor for graphene oxide synthesis. In short, the advantages for our graphene-producing clients include:

• Shortened reaction time with continuous synthesis
• High yield production rates
• High quality products with low defect rates
• Structurally uniform products with larger flake sizes
• Easy operation of reactor that gives control over product geometry
• Reduced water and acid waste for green synthesis

Advantages of Taylor Flow Reactor for Graphene Oxide Synthesis

1. Shortened Reaction Time with Continuous Synthesis

In 2019, the Taylor-Couette Flow Reactor “revolutionized the synthesis of graphite oxide” by shortening the time of oxidation from 4 hours with the Hummer’s method to 30 minutes (AlAmer et al., 2019). Despite the drastically shortened reaction time, the resulting graphite oxide sheets were uniformly structured with low defect rates and high yields.

Park et al. (2017) also compared the Hummer’s method and the Couette-Taylor Reactor for graphene oxide synthesis. They found that a 60-minute oxidation reaction in the Couette-Taylor Reactor resulted in a 98% yield of uniform, large-area flakes of few-layer graphene oxide. In contrast, the Hummer’s method produced a 34% yield within the same reaction time.

2. High Yield, High Quality, Uniform Graphene Oxide

Few-layer graphene via non-oxidative exfoliation was also produced by Tran et al. (2016) with LPR Global’s Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor. The researchers concluded that our reactor demonstrates high potential to produce high quality graphene on an industrial scale. After measuring the AFM height of more than 250 flakes, the study found that 90% of the flakes were composed of fewer than 5 layers. Raman spectroscopy also indicated low defect rates, with a Raman D/G band intensity ratio (I_D/I_G) of 0.14. An XPS also showed no evidence of oxidation, which suggests that the Taylor Vortex Reactor produced high quality graphene flakes.

Moreover, Park et al. (2017) also found that the lateral size of the graphene oxide sheets was easily manipulated by simply adjusting the rotational speed of the Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor and the reaction time. This finding is a significant improvement from sonication and homogenization methods, both of which tear graphene flakes into small, uneven pieces.

Graphite oxide synthesis via the Taylor-Couette Reactor was also found to produce assessed uniformly structured graphite oxide sheets with low defect rates and high yields by AlAmer et al. (2019). Due to the wall shear exfoliation induced by the rotating inner cylinder, the number of graphite layers decreased from ~85 layers (natural graphite) to ~8 layers. Raman spectroscopy was also used to confirm high homogeneity in the geometry of the graphite oxide produced by the vortex flow regime.

Expandable Graphite and Few-Layer Graphene for Graphene FIber

In a separate study, AlAmer et al. (2020) compared the Taylor-Couette Reactor to conventional batch processes for the exfoliation of natural graphite. Graphite exfoliation produces expandable graphite and few-layer graphene, which can be spun into ultralight graphene fiber and have high commercial applicability. The high shear rates achieved during the vortex flow regime resulted in structurally homogenous few-layer graphene sheets with large lateral dimensions of over 10 µm. This was an important finding, as flake size is a significant determinant of macroscopic fiber properties, in that larger flake sizes led to stronger fibers.

Notably, only 1-3 hours of shearing time were required to achieve expandable graphite and few-layer graphene with almost no defects. The resulting graphene fiber (bulk density 0.35g/cm³) displayed a mechanical strength of 0.5 GPa without any modification or heat treatment. The figure below shows that graphene fibers spun with the Taylor-Couette Reactor’s expandable graphite display significantly better mechanical properties than fibers using commercially available expandable graphite.

3. Green Synthesis with Reduced Acid and Water Waste

Unlike the Hummer’s method, the Taylor Vortex Flow Reactor successfully produced high yields of graphene oxide at low viscosities of under 200 cP (Park et al., 2017). The low-viscosity mixture allowed for an initial separation H₂SO₄ from the graphene oxide slurry with a simple filtration system. Subsequently, the purification of the graphene oxide product used 75% less water compared to the Hummers’ method. The finding of this study overcomes one of the greatest limitations of the Hummer’s method: its inability to produce high yields of graphene oxide from low-viscosity mixtures, which then requires great amounts of water for acid purification.

Moreover, Park et al. (2017) found that graphene oxide synthesis with once- and twice-recycled filtered H₂SO₄ for produced comparable quality and yield. Recovery rates for graphene oxide produced with fresh, once-recycled, and twice-recycled H2SO4 were approximately 98.5%, 97.1%, and 97.9%, respectively.

Customizable Reactor for Pilot-Scale Production

The 10L Taylor Vortex Reactor used by this client is ideal for pilot-scale production. The standard model has a maximum agitation speed of 1500 RPM and maximum reaction temperature of 90°C. Having said that, this Continuous Flow Reactor can also be customized for higher agitation speeds and reaction temperatures.

The user-friendly PLC interface also allows our client to save their reaction data, thereby facilitating their reaction optimization process.

For questions on how LPR Global’s Taylor Flow Reactor can enhance your advanced materials manufacturing, please reach out to [email protected].

References

AlAmer, M., Lim, A. R., & Joo, Y. L. (2018). Continuous synthesis of structurally uniform graphene oxide materials in a model Taylor–Couette flow reactor. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 58(3), 1167-1176.

AlAmer, M., Zamani, S., Fok, K., Satish, A., Lim, A. R., & Joo, Y. L. (2020). Facile Production of Graphenic Microsheets and Their Assembly via Water-Based, Surfactant-Aided Mechanical Deformations. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 12(7), 8944-8951.

Park, W. K., Yoon, Y., Kim, S., Choi, S. Y., Yoo, S., Do, Y., Jung, S., Yoon, D. H., Park, H. & Yang, W. S. (2017). Toward green synthesis of graphene oxide using recycled sulfuric acid via couette–taylor flow. ACS omega, 2(1), 186-192.

Park, W. K., Yoon, Y., Song, Y. H., Choi, S. Y., Kim, S., Do, Y., Lee, J., Park, H., Yoon, D. H., & Yang, W. S. (2017). High-efficiency exfoliation of large-area mono-layer graphene oxide with controlled dimension. Scientific reports, 7(1), 1-9.

Tran, T. S., Park, S. J., Yoo, S. S., Lee, T. R., & Kim, T. (2016). High shear-induced exfoliation of graphite into high quality graphene by Taylor–Couette flow. RSC advances, 6(15), 12003-12008.